The Confluence
Crosby’s OT goal gives Penguins much-needed 4-3 win over Sabres
by Tony on 12/22/08 at 10:35 PM ET
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What would hockey bloggers today do without Sidney Crosby to kick around ?? You name it, from HCMT misquotes (“It’s Sidney’s team” when he really said “We’ll see next game”) to NHL double standards on his recent bruhaa vs. Atlanta, one thing’s for sure; You draft an article discussing anything Crosby-related, you’re gonna get a lot of website hits, and you’re gonna get a lot of opinions.
Well, tonight’s game vs. the Sabres at HSBC will undoubtedly give the Crosby-haters (and you know who you are) another reason to spew their hatred.
Crosby’s controversial deflection goal of an Evgeni Malkin knuckleball one-timer in overtime gave the Penguins a much-needed 4-3 win over the Sabres. Crosby’s bunt-like deflection was periously close to the crossbar height, but after replay the officals said the puck was not deflected with a high stick, and the Penguins got the win.
What did I think of the call ?? You’ll have to click below to find out.
I try to be objective when I type these, so let me admit right up front: I thought it was a bad call. I thought Crosby’s stick was a good 6 inches over the crossbar. So the Penguins got the call this time. They’ve been on the wrong end of these plenty of times.
Anyway, as I said, it was a win the Pens needed desparately, especially at the start of a busy week. Now they can head home to the Igloo tomorrow night vs. Tampa with some momentum.
Marc-Andre Fleury was decent in goal tonight for the Pens, stopping 32 of 35 shots. He made some excellent saves in the first period, when the Sabres were really applying their best pressure of the game.
It didn’t start well at all for Fleury and the Pens, as the Sabres got the fortunate bounce of the puck exactly one minute into the game when Daniel Paille’s wrister from the right point deflected off the skate of a Penguins’ defenseman and past Fleury to make it 1-0 Sabres.
They doubled their lead about minutes into the second period on the first of two bad defensive lapses when Ales Kotalik grabbed a loose puck at the Pens’ blueline with Mark Eaton behind him. Kotalik skated in on Fleury and fired a wrister past him making it 2-0 Sabres.
The Penguins got right back in the game not even a minute later when Brooks Oprik fired a nice outlet pass down to the Sabres’ blueline to Miro Satan, who made an equally nice backhanded centering pass to Pascal Dupuis. Dupuis settled the puck down, then poked a shot to the top shelf past Sabres’ goalie Ryan Miller to make it 2-1 Sabres.
They tied the game at two when Malkin made a cross-ice pass to Alex Goligoski at the left point. Goligoski’s wrister to the passed through both Petr Sykora’s and Ruslan Fedotenko’s stick and squirted through Miller’s five hole. I could’ve sworn the puck his Sykora’s stick, but the goal was credited to Goligoski.
The Sabres retook the lead with about five minutes left in the second period when on the powerplay Kotalk’s slapper was stopped by Fleury, but Clarke MacArthur was there completely all alone to corral the rebound and poke it home to make it 3-2 Sabres.
It remained that was until there was about nine minutes remaining in the game when amazingly the Penguins got their first powerplay of the game. It was about 40 seconds into the powerplay when Goligoski got the puck at center point and calmly fired a hard wrister that eluded Miller to tie the game at three.
The score remained that way until overtime, when Goligoski skated the puck into the Sabres’ zone and down the left boards. He fired the puck cross-ice to Malkin, who didn’t get a lot on the puck but got enough to get it to the net, where Crosby was waiting to bunt the puck into the net to give the Penguins the win.
Other notes:
- The Versus production was terrible. The cameras were missing plays left and right.
- The “fight” in the second period between Andrew Peters and Eric Godard may go down as the Lamest Fight of the Year. Absolutely no punches thrown by either man, and ended when Peters wrestled Godard to the ground.
- Another big night for Malkin: 3 points and another +3 to pad his NHL leads.
- Matt Cooke, Max Talbot, and Jordan Staal were all -2.
- Crosby went 16-7 on faceoffs tonight.
As mentioned, the Penguins will now head home to face the Lightning in what should be the return of Ryan Whitney.
Filed in: | The Confluence | Permalink
Tags: Buffalo+Sabres, NHL-Hockey, Pittsburgh+Penguins,
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